The Heel Report: 12.13.13: Authority of One

This is the Heel Report. A weekly chart spanning from Tuesday’s NXT to next Monday’s Raw, ranking the heels in professional wrestling based on their actions, wins and losses.

Each Week there are ten places, with points out of ten awarded based on these positions. These points are then added to a rolling chart that will continue each week to show who is wrestling’s overall top heel, after 100 weeks naming the reigning wrestler a ‘Heel Centurion’.

This is a place where the heels of wrestling can be praised for all the hard work they do trying to get us all to hate them (or in other words the smarkiest chart of smarkdom ever to smark), so without further ado let’s get on with the report…

1st Place: Ethan Carter III

This might be a contentious choice for first place but really no other heel segment or actions even came close to garnering the amount of heat that EC3 got from his humiliation of Brian and Earl Hebner. When other writers on this site have discussed the segment some said it was brilliant while others said it was garbage, I am firmly in the first camp.

For a heel who is only a few weeks into his TNA career, the former Derrick Bateman has risen up the (admittedly thinned) ranks of the company, despite only facing the same two jobbers, Shark Boy, Curry Man and now the ‘legend’ that is Earl Hebner, helped majorly by his character as Dixie Carter’s prized Nephew. Gone is the fun loving jokester character that he portrayed as Bateman, now he is an elitist prick who considers himself better than 99% of the roster and with Aunt Dixie’s power and money to back him up he has no problems using it to show this.

Case in point this week where he managed to get Earl Hebner to lie down for him while his son Brian was forced to count the 1-2-3, followed up by him having to ‘shoo’ his father out of the ring while EC3 wiped his feet after Hebner in disdain and then made the younger Hebner raise his hand, the whole thing was great in terms of showing just how much of a manipulative dick this guy is and how he enjoys humiliating people just for the hell of it. When Ryback was squashing nameless jobbers it seemed pointless, whereas with EC3, certainly now that he has taken things to this level at least, it shows that the guy just wants easy wins, he doesn’t think he should have to work for victories and that makes him an even more despicable character. He is the representation of all those wrestlers who have profited from having connections in the business and yet still feel like people should think they are legitimately be the best thing ever, and it is this ego which will eventually be his undoing.

What’s more for a relatively new character he is already developing some pretty great nuances, such as saying ‘E’ ‘C’ ‘3′ along with each count in the pinfall, the aforementioned foot wiping, and then there is the way he covered Hebner, with one finger, not only representing the ‘finger-poke of doom’, the most hated manoeuvre in all of wrestling, but also him being a ‘1-percent-er’. His whole demeanour is wrapped up into a package of arrogance and entitlement that could really shine in TNA, especially now considering the thinning roster, the company needs some new blood and right now it looks like Ethan Carter the third is primed to fill that role.

2nd Place: Damien Sandow

While he is unlikely to benefit too much from this rivalry himself it seems like Damien Sandow is being built up again after his traditional losing streak as Mr Money in the Bank with wins over R-Truth and Santino Marella. While these are not exactly high profile wins they are enough to make him look like a credible mid-card challenger for Big E.’s IC belt, which will perhaps become a lot more prestigious this Sunday after the world title disappears and we are left with only one unified champion.

It is quite unfortunate that Sandow never got to have a run as world champion since his character would be a good opponent for any honest, up and coming face who pits their ability against his smarmy wit. Hell this rivalry between him and Big E. would have worked for the world title had Cena not come back and Sandow was now the one holding the belt. But there is no point in dwelling on what could have been.

I honestly hope that at their match at TLC that Big E. doesn’t get a clean victory, even if it will slow his build down a little bit. Instead I would like their to be some conjecture so that the two can continue their feud up to the Royal Rumble so as to flesh out the rivalry somewhat, make it more personal, have some fun with it, not just one-and-done. This would not only help the title but get some much needed mid-card feuds into the mix, something that the WWE has been severely lacking in the past few years.

3rd Place: Randy Orton

The WWE champion managed to get another win over Daniel Bryan in the Smackdown main event, although still somewhat tainted. But on Raw the real story was told when the Seattle crowd no-sold his promo and simply chanted for Daniel Bryan during the entire main event. What’s more his ties to the Authority seem to be all but broken after the accidental knocking down of Stephanie McMahon and subsequent Pedigree from HHH. Hell there was even a slight hint that it might in fact be John Cena who is favoured by the Authority after his helping up of Stephanie and standing with the group at the end of Raw.

I am too jaded at this point to ever believe that this is the start of some kind of heel turn for John Cena, if they didn’t do it with the Rock then why do it now? But it could mean that we get some interesting interplays between the Authority and the new unified champion going forward after TLC. What was important about the end of the Slammy’s edition of Raw was that it really seemed to hint at the possible tag match at Wrestlemania between DX and the team of Punk & Bryan, which could actually be pretty awesome.

Things are still pretty unclear what exactly will go down at Mania, or even who will be there, with a question mark hanging over the heads of part time guys like Jericho, RVD, the Rock and the Undertaker. As for Orton, if he is not involved in the title match then who knows, would he be a legitimate contender for the Undertaker’s streak? Or will he even still be relevant by the time April rolls around? We’ll just have to wait and see.

4th Place: Bad Influence

The Bad Influence resorted to bullying this week, determined to expose Joseph Park for the delusional liar that he is. Although I am unsure why they would wish to do this given that the real Park is Abyss and who would want to bring that monster back? Perhaps they know that bringing Abyss back might also mean the return of the TV title, which he still holds, and they want that for themselves, although even if that were the case and they wanted gold it would make more sense for them to be going after the Bro-Mans and the tag team gold.

But then that would break the hallowed face-heel dynamic, even if the TNA tag division only really has two teams, Bad Influence being one and the champs being the other. I have no real idea why they don’t just turn them face and then have them take on the Bro-Mans until the company can actually get some new tag teams together to flesh out their division again.

5th Place: Rockstar Spud

Speaking of the TNA tag scene it is possible that the newest tag team might come in the form of the aforementioned Ethan Carter the third and the new Chief of Staff; Rockstar Spud (this makes more sense if you have read the Impact spoilers like I have).

Spud had a hand in the Hebner debacle this week, forcing Brian down and to count the fall. He also had a nice interaction with Sting where he barely knew who he was, which was a nice change from the general heroic reverence that he normally receives. More of this please.

6th Place: Aiden English

The true performer is still one of the most captivating heels in all of NXT. I can’t help but feel though that if he came up to the main roster he would get about as far as Damien Sandow at best and Fandango at worst, which sure isn’t so bad, but he isn’t exactly setting the world on fire anymore is he. The more I think about the titles being unified the more I think about the reduced number of spots there will be for guys to squeeze into the main event.

On the flipside of this hopefully having only a couple of spots open in the main event will force WWE creative to actually give a crap about talent not going for either world title. It is hard not to miss the layered levels of storyline that used to be commonplace in the company, something that should be helped thoroughly by the renewed focus on the tag team division in the WWE, at least to start with. Now if only we could get a compelling storyline surrounding each title and a couple more to boot and then PPV cards might actually start to mean something again.

7th Place: Gail Kim

The Knockouts champion is suffering from the same problems as the TNA tag champs and X Division champion, that being that there are bugger all people in their division, not just viable challengers but actually barely anyone to face for the belt they have won.

It is pretty strange that the second biggest promotion in the US has a smaller roster than many of the lesser known wrestling companies out there. I would argue that TNA in general has a better quality of wrestling matches with the small roster they have than the WWE since they seem to have more wrestlers than they know what to do with, but it can only be so long before this lack of roster depth starts to really hurt the company and what they can do storyline-wise. Case in point the fact that ODB seems like she will be challenging Gail Kim for the Knockouts title next, didn’t we already see that recently? And since not much time is spent building up their rivalry it doesn’t really event feel like anything significant that the two are facing off again. It’s a problem that needs to be addressed and soon.

8th Place: The Wyatt Family

Now that it is clear that Bray Wyatt is truly trying to recruit Daniel Bryan, and that Daniel Bryan is undisputedly the most over guy on the roster right now and shouldn’t have his persona messed with it seems like things are on a collision course for this Sunday and something has got to give.

Do the Wyatt’s have their push diminished somewhat by seeing Bryan triumph over all three of them by his lonesome, or does Bryan find himself in another compromising situation that he eventually overcomes or manages to make awesome despite itself. I know which one of the two I like the sound of more, but how does the WWE see it? Honestly I wouldn’t mind seeing Bryan wearing a goat mask for a little bit before eventually finding his way out of that madness and back to the main event before Wrestlemania, but who knows what the future holds.

9th Place: Wade Barrett

I have some bad news; I don’t see how this gimmick has any legs whatsoever, and that is bad because I actually really like Wade Barrett, he holds his English-ness with a certain swagger that you don’t usually see out of English competitors.

Up to this point I have been almost glad that they haven’t really gone down the traditional ‘Union Jack’ malarkey route where Barrett’s character was all about his English-ness, but if this is the alternative than maybe that would be for the best.

10th Place: Robert Roode

The ‘IT’ Factor is still going strong despite losing this week to Hardy in a tables match, meaning that he doesn’t qualify for the finals of the TNA title tournament. Still it was done in such a fluke way that it didn’t really make Roode look weak, and he made up for his loss by attacking Angle later in the night to cost him his match and continue their feud.

Which is nice.

(Week 022)

1. Randy Orton (121)

2. Bully Ray (97)

3. HHH (83)

4. Alberto Del Rio (76)

5. AJ Lee (67)

6. Dixie Carter (66)

7. Damien Sandow (60)

8. Dean Ambrose (54)

9. Robert Roode (49)

10. Bray Wyatt (46)

Heel Centurions:

That’s all for this week, with TLC coming up and with there being such an ‘epic’ main event you’d think things would feel more important, but they really don’t at this point. Still there is always the possibility of big things happening and no matter what it means that the Royal Rumble is soon, full of unlimited possibilities, especially if Cena is champion and doesn’t participate in the rumble match itself. No matter how the WWE is doing at this point of the year there is always the promise of the Rumble, TNA really needs to do the same type of thing, although at this point I’m not even sure if they would have enough guys to carry out the Bound For Glory series, let alone their own full blown rumble. For now this is James Wright signing off.